Spatial averaging for light reflection and transmission through cold atom arrays

TL;DR

This paper explores how the spatial distribution and coherence of atoms in arrays affect light reflection and transmission, finding that for weak light and short timescales, simple averaging suffices, but not otherwise.

Contribution

It demonstrates that atomic coherence is negligible under certain conditions, validating simple spatial averaging methods for modeling light-atom interactions.

Findings

Coherence is irrelevant for weak light and short timescales.

Simple averaging over atom positions matches detailed calculations under these conditions.

Outside these conditions, simple averaging may be inaccurate.

Abstract

We theoretically and computationally investigate the role that the spatial spread of atoms plays in the transmission and reflection of weak light from atom arrays. In particular, we investigate whether coherent wave functions for the atoms' positions leads to different results from a thermal distribution with the same spatial spread. We find that the coherence is not relevant when the light is weak and the electronic states evolve on time scales shorter than the oscillation period of the atoms in their traps. Full numerical calculations and derivations using the sudden approximation show that reflection and transmission agree with the simple averaging over atom positions for these conditions. For parameters outside these restrictions, the simple spatial averaging may lead to inaccurate results.